


Faulted Wires

by VespidaeQueen



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android kissing, Confessions, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15709575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: When did Simon start looking at Markus like that? When did Markus notice, begin to notice, begin to look for it himself?In the quiet hours before the battle for Detroit, Markus finds a moment for himself, and for Simon.





	Faulted Wires

**Author's Note:**

> It's been two years since I've written fic, and I'm not at all surprised that it's androids with feelings that have made me write again. A big thank you to [RedSummerRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSummerRose) for taking a look at this, offering feedback, and fixing my typos!

It’s quiet, the night before everything ends. It should be louder, given the number of androids within the abandoned church, but the worry and unease seems to bring a silence upon them. Words spoken are all but whispered; they know that tomorrow might be the last.

Markus finds himself filled with that same unease that permeate the church. He is restless and his mind buzzes with an energy that he cannot calm. Tomorrow, tomorrow,  _ tomorrow _ \- it is so close, and yet the seconds drag in the stale air of building.

He sees his friends, companions - Josh, sitting with his hands folded in his lap, shoulders slumped. North by herself, arms crossed, pulled in within herself. Reserved, in a way she is not normally. There’s Connor there, too, tucked away in the corner. The new arrival, a wildcard, all tightly contained energy and drawn features. His foot jumps nervously, a very human tic that Markus wonders if it existed even a few hours ago, when that wall between programming and individuality was broken.

And he looks for Simon, and sees - nothing. There are faces here, Simon’s face, the shared features of his series on many of the androids that have joined them in the past days. But he doesn’t see Simon.

There is a feeling in his chest, like a fault in the code that pumps Thirium through his heart. A little twist, like when they had returned from the Stratford Tower and he had simply been  _ gone _ . 

It’s irrational. He knows Simon is still here, knows he made it out of the ruins of Jericho. He knows they had spoken only an hour ago, here in this very room.

_ Irrational _ . A flaw in his code.

“He gone wandering,” Markus hears, Josh’s soft voice from behind him. “Around this...place. He’ll be back.”

_ I’m not worried _ , Markus wants to say, but the words stick in his throat. He nods, once, and then he, too, goes to wander.

And it’s quiet.

The church is old, long abandoned like much of the city. The plaster is worn away from the walls and the floor is covered in dirt and dust. The old floorboards protest beneath his feet where they have not yet rotted away, and the whole place seems like a breath held, not yet released. Dust in the air, floating in the shafts of dim moonlight that filter in from the broken walls.

He finds him then, in one of the old forgotten hallways, by a window that’s half cracked away to reveal an overgrown, winter-dead garden outside. In the dim light, he could be anyone, any of the PL series that shares a face. But Markus  knows him, knows by the slope of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. The way the dim, cold light through the fracture glass of the building illuminates the angle of his cheek, his jaw, in silver.

Markus does not think he could mistake anyone else for Simon.

“Markus,” Simon says, and his voice is soft. He sits upon an old bench, one that was pushed up against the wall, perhaps a waiting place from years past. One knee is drawn up to his chest, foot resting upon the edge of the seat. One arm wrapped around that knee.

He looks tired, in a way that they shouldn’t be programmed for. But he does - it’s there around his eyes and his mouth, expression half-lidded. He looks tired and drawn. Weary.

Markus feels again that little glitch, that little fault in his chest. An unnecessary breath catches.

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” he says, as though he has. The tired edge of Simon’s mouth draw up, a smile that reaches his tired eyes.

“You’re not a bother, Markus. You - can sit, if you want. I’d prefer not to sit alone.”

And Markus hesitates for only a moment before he drops down beside Simon. Inches between them, dusty oak slats dark with age.

“I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”

Simon’s smile dims a little, mouth softening. His lips part for a moment, as he seems to catch himself, the slight pause that is so often there before he speaks. “I needed...some space to think. With everything that’s happened, it’s been…”

He doesn’t need to finish, Markus thinks he can understand. It has been a whirlwind of planning and execution and high tension moments that have left little room to simply be.

“It’s been different,” Simon says, which does surprise Markus, if only a little. “Two years of simply existing as best I could, and then you show up and suddenly everything is different.”

He wonders, if he’s imagining it. The softness to Simon’s expression when he looks at him. “Different how?”

Simon’s eyes dart away from him; he shakes his head and that smile is back, at odds with his next words. “Well, for one I had a lot fewer near-death experiences before you showed up.”

The Thirium pump within his chest seems to falter momentaily. “Simon, I -”

Simon reaches out, still that soft smile on his face. He touches Markus’s hand, momentarily. Just a brush of his fingers, lightly curling beneath Markus’s, tightening for just a moment. Then he lets go. His hand falls back to his side.

There’s a feeling of static that hums across his skin, just for a moment. Lingers, then fades.

“I’m sorry, that sounded terrible.”

Markus lets himself laugh. It sounds too loud in the quiet space of the hall. “A little, yeah. I don’t want to...I don’t want to lead you to your death, Simon.”

It’s heavy and it’s almost too honest and it seems to hang in the silent dead air of the hallway. Simon just... _ looks _ at him, that soft, sad tinge to his eyes, the slight part of his lips. When did he start looking at Markus like that? When did Markus notice, begin to notice, begin to look for it himself?

He thinks  _ the rooftop _ . He thinks  _ seeing him come back _ . He thinks a lot of things, all at once, all crowded into his head, running through circuits and feeding back upon one another.

He thinks of static on the back of his hand, where Simon’s fingers had been.

Simon lets his foot slip back to the floor, leans forward so that his elbows rest upon his knees. His shirt hangs loosely upon his frame, just a little too big, just a little too worn. His sleeves cover the back of his hands, long slim fingers lacing together.

“I - we’ll follow you anywhere, Markus,” he says then, this confession that Markus already knows, needs to hear, doesn’t want to hear. “Before, we were - existing, in Jericho. Barely existing. We were dying slowly, which we all knew. I think, maybe North might have done something, eventually. She’s always been good at action, Josh at thinking.”

His thumb runs over the opposing digit, once, then he lets his hands fall away from one another.  “I was never...I was never made for this. I was...my programing...I was a domestic model. Made for cooking and housework and groceries. A caretaker. I wasn’t made heists and demonstrations.”

“I’m not all that different, Simon. I was a caretaker, too.”

Simon looks at him sidelong, from beneath the artificial filaments that make up his lashes. “And look at what you’ve become.”

What has he become? In such a short span of time, he thinks that the world has opened up in front of him. It’s become bigger than just Carl, bigger than one house in a city, bigger than all the canvases covered in paint. It’s become North, and Josh, and Simon, and Jericho. It’s become even more than that.

“I suppose I’ve gone from caring for one person to caring for a whole lot more,” he says, half a smile on his mouth. “I don’t think I was made for any of this, either. But what I was made for doesn’t change what I can do. And tomorrow...tomorrow I promise I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we all make it out alive.”

Simon looks at him for a long moment, brows drawn together, lips slightly ajar. “You...can’t make that promise, Markus. We all know that we might not make it through tomorrow. We understand.”

Markus  _ knows _ . He knows this. He knows no matter what happens, he can’t guarantee that any of them will survive. He knows that if one thing goes wrong, it will be like the top of the tower all over again; impossible choices all to be made within the smallest fraction of time.

He looks at Simon and he  _ knows _ this, and the truth of it burns up in his chest. He looks at Simon and  _ feels _ \- there, in his chest, tangled up in all the wires within his ribcage - the strongest desire to wrap his arms around him, to pull him close, to spend just a moment pretending that he doesn’t have to let go. That they aren’t going to walk out of here tomorrow to an uncertain end.

“Whatever happens, I’m not going to leave you again.”

There. He’s said it. The words are out there, he can’t take them back.

Simon is staring now - no longer simply a look, his gaze is locked on Markus and his expression is shocked, it’s bewildered, it’s lost. His jaw works for a long, wordless moment, like he doesn’t know what to say.

“You can’t make that promise,” he repeats. “You can’t.”

And Simon is right, just as he often is. A calm, stable balance and voice of reason. Practical, but never veering to the extremes of the rest of them. Maybe it's why he's lasted so long, two years hidden away as a deviant. Surviving, but never quite moving past it.

“If I can do something more than last time,” he tries again, “then I'll do it. I won't leave you behind on some rooftop again. I can't - I don't want to lose you again, Simon.”

Static, from his touch, and a little hiccup of faulty code in his chest. He wonders if Simon’s thoughts are just as jumbled, if all his wires seem cross and spark when he is near. He wonders.

And so he glances away, too many emotions wound inside him, still new and untested, unexamined. Glances away, takes an artificial breath, tries to steel himself to get up, to walk away, to go out and face everything that the world has to throw at him and not speak another word.

But he’s stopped. He’s stopped by the touch of Simon’s hand upon his own, tentative yet firmer than before. His fingers rest a top Markus’s for a moment, hesitant, and then his hand turns so that their palms press together. Their fingers tangle; Simon’s thumb runs over his skin.

“I don't want to lose  _ you _ , Markus.”

Markus stares at their joined hands, his breath still, caught inside his synthetic lungs. Thirium runs too fast through his heart, it races, it catches him entirely off-guard.

He must take a moment too long to react; Simon stills and then it seems like all the breath goes out of him. His grip loosens, and he begins to slip away, and  _ that _ is enough for each circuit and synapse in Markus to finally  _ move _ . He tightens his fingers, grasps Simon’s hand tightly,  _ pulls _ until he’s brought their joined hands up between them. He lets his fingers slide free of Simon’s, lets them over the back of his hand to catch around his wrist, and he -  _ doesn’t think _ \- leans down and presses his lips just there, at the base of his palm, right where his skin is no longer covered by the long edge of his sleeve.

Simon’s fingers curl, they brush along the bridge of his nose, and Markus tips his head and kisses there as well, along each joint. He feels like there is static in his head, in his chest, dancing along the metal bones within his hand, along the surface of his skin. Static in his ears, like he can’t hear, except he can hear Simon say  _ Markus _ , not like a question but like a sigh.

He closes his eyes, rests their joined hands against his forehead, his shoulders bowed, the simulacrum of a heart in his chest beating rapidly. He can’t take this back now, it’s all out in the open. There’s no other way that Simon can interpret this than what Markus has just revealed.

But Simon turns his hand again, those curled fingers smoothing out along the side of Markus’s face, tracing along the angle of his cheekbone and the shell of his ear. And Markus thinks  _ oh _ as his hand slips down to Simon’s elbow and Simon leans forward as he pulls Markus forward and he’s not sure what he’s expecting. A kiss, maybe, and he  _ wants _ that, wants it, but Simon presses his forehead against Markus. Their noses brush, Markus tips his head forward but Simon holds him there, lets them rest against each other, eyes closed, just -

Just - 

Its unexpected, the way that the pressure between them sends static across him, the way that his skin peels back and away, leave behind nothing but what he is, what they both are. He doesn’t see it, but he knows, feels the decay of flesh from where their foreheads press, where Simon’s fingers touch his face.

It’s unexpected, the feedback between them, the way everything suddenly opens up. Zeroes and ones and zeroes, all turned into data, data turned to thoughts, to memories, to emotions. All that faulty code in his chest, all the worries and the thoughts that he tries to keep hidden, they all come out, spill out between them. And Simon is -

Simon is -

_ Calm _ .

It’s unexpected. It’s so unexpected. And then it isn’t, it’s just Simon. Just Simon, Simon,  _ Simon _ . Calm and quiet and sturdy, and how could he lose him again? How could he leave him again? 

“Your heart,” he says then, two words into the quiet of the hall. He doesn’t open his eyes. “It’s so quiet. How..?”

“That’s because of you,” says Simon, like it’s as simple as that. He doesn’t have to say anything more, because it’s so clear in those unspoken words between them. His heart is so calm, because Markus is near, and how can that be, when Markus’s heart beats so quickly?

Simon lets his hand slip free; everything turns quiet, the connection lost. And then, just as he is about to lament that loss of feeling, the dulling of the static within his wires, Simon reaches out and rests his fingertips lightly upon his chest. Just pressure enough that he can feel them through the fabric of his shirt.

“Your heart,” he says, and then pauses. Something passes across his face, like a realization. He bites down upon his bottom lip, as though he is at a loss for words.

“What about my heart?” Markus tries to say it lightly, but it comes out as a breath, comes out bewildered. Without the connection open between them, without the transfer of data from one to the other, he doesn’t  _ know _ .

Simon doesn’t answer him; instead he tips his head, presses his mouth against Markus’s. The kiss that Markus had wanted, but not quite - it’s light, so light. No connection open between them, no skin slipping away to show the white casing beneath. It’s just a gesture, an approximation of an action done between humans, that shouldn’t mean anything.

But it does. It does, because through some fault in the code that created them, some mutation of carefully written programs, they’re able to think and feel and chose. It does, because Markus wants to it mean something. It does, because it’s  _ Simon _ .

Simon kisses him, and Markus feels it in every joint, every wire, in the catch in his heart and the white noise in his ears. It is sweet and soft and unrushed, like they have all the time in the world. It’s a kiss like the calmness that Markus now knows sits inside Simon.

Simon kisses him, but only for a moment. And then he pulls away.

“When all of this is over, I'll tell you,” Simon says, and while he smiles there's something terribly sad around the corners of his eyes. “Just make it through tomorrow.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Markus says, and he wonders if any of these promises will be kept through the next day. But if they can, then maybe he can understand how he fits so perfectly into Simon’s heart that there is nothing but calmness when he is there.


End file.
